Caledon prepares for growth

Nice place to build

Chris Vernon

Maya Harris, manager of growth planning and analysis for the Ministry of Infrastructure, presented an update on the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe 2006 (GGH), including details of a proposed amendment that contains vastly increased population figures for the Region of Peel.
“This creates a tremendous growth pressure in Peel,” said Ward 3 and 4 Regional Councillor Richard Whitehead.

CALEDON— The province of Ontario said it’s six years into a new growth plan and still needs time to absorb the positives and negatives, but Caledon’s Council already has suggestions on policy changes to benefit rural communities in Canada’s most populated province.
Maya Harris, manager of growth planning and analysis for the Ministry of Infrastructure, presented an update on the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe 2006 (GGH), including details of a proposed amendment that contains vastly increased population figures for the Region of Peel.
“This creates a tremendous growth pressure in Peel,” said Ward 3 and 4 Regional Councillor Richard Whitehead.
A proposed amendment to the plan for the GGH was released this past fall, which contained schedules for growth that see an increase of approximately 300,000 for the overall population of the Region of Peel. Numbers that now have Caledon’s council asking the province to allow them to flow some of the growth in sooner rather than later.
With talk of Brampton and Mississauga being near capacity, Caledon’s councillors are beginning to prepare themselves for a sizeable allocation and two things were on their minds Tuesday – the timeframe in which that population would be allocated to Caledon, and a specific condition the province has on growth.
The province declared within the proposed amendment that allocation schedules to 2031 should remain the same (The target is approximately 103,000 for Caledon), while the Region of Peel would receive the majority of their increases leading up to new horizons of 2036 and 2041.
Caledon’s council, on recommendation of local planning staff, have asked for the 2031 benchmark to be removed, allowing them to phase in some of the increased numbers earlier then originally planned to avoid a spike of population growth between 2031 and 2041.
Caledon’s council also asked that linking of population and employment growth numbers be ended. The present provincial growth plan calls for municipalities to achieve 50 persons per hectare for greenfield areas in residential and employment growth. Caledon’s council has been adamant that they will only produce low density styles of employment for Caledon, and linking the numbers creates a problem.
“This is such a punitive issue,” said Whitehead. “It does not recognize at all the type of industry we attract to Caledon. In your presentation you talk about head offices happening in other spots of the GTA as it starts to decentralize. Well, that’s where the density is,” he asserted.
Whitehead said the Canadian Pacific (CP) intermodal yard located just south of Caledon in Vaughan beckons a goods movement industry that will dominate the area.
“Movement of goods doesn’t create high density,” he said.
Whitehead called on the province to change their formula so that a community like Caledon, which he believes will attract low density warehouse employment land, isn’t forced to achieve residential densities higher than 50 per hectare in order to catch up.
Tongue in cheek, Ward 1 Regional Councillor Richard Paterak asked Harris if there was a world event such as a natural disaster or a mass immigration she, or the province, knew about that they weren’t sharing.
“We (Peel) have rates of growth of 10,000 and 15,000 a year until years 2031 and 2036 when all of a sudden we have to grow by more than 200,000? How does this represent good planning? Is there something in the conditions of the world that will cause such a ripple?”
Harris explained that the amendment was “a proposal” and they were looking for comments from the municipalities they were speaking with. On the linking of residential and employment growth figures, she suggested Caledon’s council prepare itself for the policy review of the entire growth plan that will happen in 2016. For today, she said, the province was really looking for comment and reaction to the schedules for population allocation included in the amendment.
Whitehead told her the two issues were linked.
“Provincial policy needs to change first,” he said. “So that the formula changes, then we can get on to the next questions and the implementation. Without policy change, it’s going to get worse, and we won’t meet the needs for this population the Minister is asking for.”
Ward 3 and 4 Area Councillor Nick deBoer complimented the growth plan for encouraging redevelopment and intensification, but said the allocation numbers do not support a prosperous local economy. He wondered why the schedules on the amendment had Caledon growing by three residents to one job, while it had other areas of the GTA growing by two to one.
“I don’t know if there’s an opportunity to look at the ratios and I would suggest you should be increasing the employment within the GGH.”
Mayor Marolyn Morrison reiterated her desire to see the expectations for growth delinked and chastised the province for not working with longer planning timeframes.
“You talk in your presentation about providing sufficient long term direction to municipalities. I don’t think 20 years is sufficiently long term,” she said. “The province should consider a minimum of 50 years. If we knew 50 years out what to plan for, it would be a huge benefit.”
Harris thanked the council for their comments and assured them all of their input would be considered by the province when the proposed amendment is reviewed.